1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a roller lifter and a method of manufacturing the roller lifter.
2. Related Art
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. JP-A-2014-1706 discloses a roller lifter including a lifter body having a sliding surface slidable on an inner wall of a cylinder and a roller rotatably mounted via a shaft support pin to the lifter body and brought into contact with a cam. The lifter body has a rotation stopper formed to protrude outward, a forward sliding surface located in front of the rotation stopper with respect to a sliding direction and a rear sliding surface located at the rear of the rotation stopper. The rotation stopper is formed by pressing a punch against an inner periphery of a peripheral wall of the lifter body and bending the inner periphery outward.
The above-described structure can improve the rigidity of the lifter body and ensure a longer front-rear dimension of the sliding surface with the result that axial runout (cocking) of the roller lifter relative to the inner wall of the cylinder can be reduced.
In the above-described roller lifer, however, in the forming of the rotation stopper, the punch is axially inserted inside the peripheral wall of the lifter body and then turned to a radial direction inside the peripheral wall. Thereafter, a movement direction of the punch is specified so that a part of the peripheral wall is punched out with the punch. This complicates the mold construction, resulting in a problem of increase in manufacturing costs.